Category: Social Media Surgery

Fresh start for the Central Birmingham Social Media Surgery – new volunteers from BBC Birmingham

Central Birmingham was the first social media surgery set up to support local community and voluntary orgs –  nearly 5 ears ago on October 15th 2008.

We’ve used various venues, from BVSC who generously helped with that first surgery through to the fine Fazeley Studios and for since April 2010 the wonderful Studio Venues.   So thank you to all those who have given us free space and dealt with our relaxed, rather laissez faire approach to helping the smaller bits of the local third sector with free social media help.

This month we have a new venue and some new helpers:  BBC Birmingham.  For a couple of years now one of the surgeries in Manchester has eclipsed what we are doing here (not that it’s a competition) . Steven Flower has been collaborating with the arm of the BBC that gets it’s staff involved in volunteering.  Whereas a busy Central Birmingham Surgery might see 20 people in an evening he  (and Kate Fox) are  involving  sometimes twice that.

BBC at the Mailboc in Birmingham - window with a reflection of a crane
BBC at the Mailbox in Birmingham – image courtesy of feltip1982 on flickr

So what does this mean:

  • If you are from a local community or voluntary org sign up here http://www.socialmediasurgery.com/surgeries/central-birmingham  for our first surgery at the Mailbox on 17th September 2013. You might be getting help from a local blogger – you might be getting help from a local BBC staffer – either way it will be relaxed and useful.  Do not worry if you are new to all this – we are gentle!
  • If you know someone who might like a surgery please share this link with them http://www.socialmediasurgery.com/surgeries/central-birmingham
  • If you are regular surgeon then it’s a new venue.
  • If you would like to help manage this surgery then please contact me through @podnosh.
  • If you’ve helped us in the past – thank you.

So onwards and where-everwards.

ps:  Since we started in 2008 this surgery alone has seen 309 different people through it’s doors on 43 different evenings.  They’ve used what they have learnt to create or work on a minimum of 73 different websites (I know it many more – but we have recorded the 73).   It’s one of 147 that have sprung up in some shape or form across the UK and the rest of the world since then.   Last week we tipped the 4000 mark in term of organisations and people involved.

 

 

 

When it comes to Social Media think “Quality not Quantity”

Wolverhampton Federation of Tenants Associations

I was at the Wolverhampton Social Media Surgery this week when a patient came for some help, who highlighted to me in a practical way somethings I’ve known and we’ve taught for a long time….

When it comes to Social Media it’s quality over quantity is what you’re looking for and being useful is what matters most.

Lorraine had come for some advice with the Wolverhampton Federation of Tenants Associations (WFTA) facebook page. I’d helped her set it up at a previous surgery  and now she’d come along asking for help getting more “fans”, as at that point the page only had 44 “likes”.

The WFTA promotes the interests of social sector tenants within Wolverhampton and aims to ensure tenants and prospective tenants are able to have a say over services and are able to influence them so they are relevant to their needs. The WFTA facebook page is used to share information about the service the WFTA offers, engage with tenants and to advertise events they have coming up, most recently around welfare reform and regeneration. Lorraine wanted more fans so she could reach a wider audience, for more people to see the content  for the benefit of the community but also as evidence to her boss, and the project funders that their social media was working.

Not only 44

She was fixated on that number 44, “only” 44 people were engaged with her page –  “only” 44 people had clicked like – “only” 44 people are seeing my posts And on she went asking should I pay for advertising?  How can I get MORE people to like the page –  So I suggested that before she rushed out to pay for promoted content (something she had asked about) we look at the insights for her page….

We looked at the the reach of the page and the reach of individual posts. One update alone had reached 358 people. Some had more, some had less but that’s the one we focused on, so lets work that out in percentages, ((358-44)/44)*100= 713.63,  rounded up  that’s a 714% increase in the actual amount of people that were seeing the post  to what she had thought were seeing it as evidenced by the number of people that like her page.

So where were the views coming from – how was she reaching so many people when she only had 44 likes?

The Right Content

Lorraine was being useful to her target audience and so in turn her content was being shared.

She could have only had 244 fans and still ended with a a total reach of 358 or maybe even less for that post if 200 of those people were the WRONG people to be talking to and the content was irrelevant.

Those 44 people were the right people for her to be engaged with. They thought the message she was sharing was useful and they in turn were sharing across to their own profiles and pages ultimately it IS the quality of the engagement that matters more than the number of people you think you’re engaging with.

 

Awards for the Social Media Surgeries – and boy did we feel like frauds!

I’m probably going to cover to much ground in this and waffle a bit.  So lets start with something you can get a handle on:

Award the first….

 

A week or two ago we picked up an Adult Learners Week 2013 Award for the Social Media Surgeries.  It was an honour and I think an achievement.  1500 nominations turned into to 21 national awards. Ours is the BBC Learning Through Technology Award.  It’s an award for the close to 4000 people who so far been to a surgery. It also for the almost 500 people who been a surgeon – and helped people learn.

I try avoiding getting the surgeries tied up in ideas of formal learning.  I’ve always argued they are a place where people can get on with each first and foremost – learning improves as the relationships shape up.  NIACE understood informal learning well.

So thank you BBC Learning  and NIACE.  This is the film NIACE  made about the surgeries:

It meant a trip to an awards do in London for Steven Flower (Various Manchester Surgeries),  Steph Jennings (Lots of Birmingham and Wolverhampton surgeries – and works with me to deliver surgeries for public sector bodies), myself and George Marston.  George is a volunteer running the Low Hill Community Centre and he more than doubled visits after learning to use social media at a local surgery, one which was supported/funded by Wolverhampton Homes (thanks Kate Reynolds) , Wolverhampton Police (thanks Mark Payne) and the Partnerships team at Wolverhampton Council (thanks Sam Axtell).

Here we started to shrink into our chairs.  So many people had overcome so much through learning that I certainly felt like messing about with a laptop didn’t quite match up to their achievements.  Here’s a couple to watch, including the brill brum organsiation MyTime CIC

and Jenny Dimmock

There was another trip to Leicester for the regional awards.  This time with two people.  Austin Rodriguez – who’s worked with us through the Birmingham Community Safety Partnership to help change the way communities are using social media in Brum.  Austin has himself become a prolific blogger  ( at http://bhamsouthcommunitysafety.com/  and other sites) and now shares his skills at social media surgeries. And Lol Thurstan – an astonishing man who took just three weeks to go from knowing nothing about publishing to the web to running his own hyperlocal blog ( http://b26community.wordpress.com )  alongside local police officers.

Awards – the ones I didn’t mention….

 

This is where I go  on a bit too much.  For some reason I’m reluctant to write about the awards we get here – or anywhere.  We encourage our clients to share their achievements online – but I’m a bit rubbish at it for us.  Anyone who knows me will know I’m not shy – can sometimes be a bit cocky.  I’ve no idea what it’s about. So for the record two other awards I’ve not mentioned on this site before.

Innovation in a Networked Society.  First Place in this European wide competition run by The Oxford Internet Institute and the Knetworks programme from the European Union – last November (I think)

Creative City Award – most helpful thing in Birmingham – voted by the public 2009 (I xan’t even find a link now!) .

 

Erdington Social Media Surgery: A volunteer helping a volunteer learn from a volunteer…..

Rinkoo Barpaga at Erdington Social Media Surgery

This is Rinkoo Barpaga, Rinkoo attended the Erdington Social Media Surgery this afternoon for some help telling the story of a project he’s involved with.

In 2 weeks time he’ll be flying to the states to take part in a series of workshops and training sessions with deaf community groups, theatre groups and comedians to learn how they approach putting on events for the deaf community over there hoping to bring the knowledge back to the UK to make things happen over here.

Not photographed is Rinkoo’s interpreter (who politely declined to be in front of the camera) a volunteer who had come along to act as a sign interpreter so that Rinkoo could sit and learn with me as Rinkoo himself is deaf.

It was a productive session which as always was adapted to best suit the person learning but in this instance involved a 3 way conversation and a lot of pointing but  there was something really lovely about how it came together, a volunteer helping a volunteer come and learn from, had it been someone else other than me teaching him, another volunteer.